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Nameless Dame: Murder on the Russian River
The Russian River Valley—laid-back, marijuana-steeped, and off-the-grid—is the backdrop for Bart Schneider’s new mystery featuring the tough and dogged detective Augie Boyer.
Augie takes a break from the bite of another Minnesota winter by visiting the California homestead of his longtime friend Bobby Sabbatini, who is celebrating the opening of his poetry-infused tavern, Ginsberg’s Galley. But Augie’s notoriety precedes him, and his arrival is met with a trip to a murder scene. Ruthie Rosenberg, a local who has fallen into a life of drugs and dependence, has been found at The Last Judgment Campground, shot twice in the head.
At the request of the Deputy Jesse Coolican, who’s loved Ruthie for years, Augie promises to investigate the case himself. No sooner than he starts to ask questions, Augie discovers the trail leading to Ruthie’s killer—or killers—is tangled with politics, religion, bold-faced lies, and suspicious double-lives. Even his closest friends are part of the fray.
Is Ruthie’s murder the work of a copycat? An escalated statement by the religious right? Only an outsider can discover the painful truth—and Augie must work quickly before the insular community buries the truth deep among its ever-growing secrets.
Augie takes a break from the bite of another Minnesota winter by visiting the California homestead of his longtime friend Bobby Sabbatini, who is celebrating the opening of his poetry-infused tavern, Ginsberg’s Galley. But Augie’s notoriety precedes him, and his arrival is met with a trip to a murder scene. Ruthie Rosenberg, a local who has fallen into a life of drugs and dependence, has been found at The Last Judgment Campground, shot twice in the head.
At the request of the Deputy Jesse Coolican, who’s loved Ruthie for years, Augie promises to investigate the case himself. No sooner than he starts to ask questions, Augie discovers the trail leading to Ruthie’s killer—or killers—is tangled with politics, religion, bold-faced lies, and suspicious double-lives. Even his closest friends are part of the fray.
Is Ruthie’s murder the work of a copycat? An escalated statement by the religious right? Only an outsider can discover the painful truth—and Augie must work quickly before the insular community buries the truth deep among its ever-growing secrets.
- GenresMystery
304 pages, Paperback
First published February 21, 2012
2 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 28, 2013
This book is a pair with Schneider's earlier The Man In The Blizzard. Also a pair are the two lead detectives--Bobby Sabbatini and Augustus Boyer. Boyer is a pothead private eye with a rock-star daughter. Sabbatini is, in Blizzard, a detective with the Minneapolis police. Once they've finished solving the Minnesota mystery, things change a bit, but in both books the schtick is that Sabbatini has become not only enamored of poetry, but an evangelist. He's on a mission to get everyone around him memorizing poetry with the idea that it will transform individual lives and eventually the world. If you're an English major like me, you eventually get bummed at the number of poets and lines you've never heard of. You feel like a poetic illiterate. Still, Schneider picks good poetry, appropriate to the situation, so it's not his fault.
Here's a Creeley poem, for example (I've heard of and read Creeley, so it's not him I'm talking about when I talk about illiteracy):
As I sd to my
friend, because I am always talking, --John, I
sd, which was not his name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big
car. . .
Believe me, it fits, and it brings a smile as so much of Augie's narration does.
As I was saying, once the Minneapolis mystery is solved, we move on to The Nameless Dame, in which Sabbatini has moved to my neck of the woods--Guerneville/Cazadero on the Russian River. Only he's not a detective any more. He's married a woman he met during the Minnesota investigation, had a kid, and wants to open a Karoake poetry bar, where people can come in and recite poems instead of singing country music or whatever.
Augie (still the narrator) comes out for a visit. A woman gets gunned down and lies unidentified for a time. Now Augie and Sabbatini have to solve that one as well as staving off a proposed casino and people who don't want the bar to open. Enemies of art. In this one, Augie has taken to composing haiku--or at least haiku-like poems. He's eschewed all the syllable counting, but he likes to encapsulate moments in verse:
The evidence slips like sand
through his hands.
the air is clear.
No suspect, no witness.
Once the ghosts stop
singing their damn songs
he'll call it a day.
And thus it goes from one end of this entertaining and gritty narrative to the other. So, set up a bong and start turning pages. You're guaranteed a trip you won't forget.
Here's a Creeley poem, for example (I've heard of and read Creeley, so it's not him I'm talking about when I talk about illiteracy):
As I sd to my
friend, because I am always talking, --John, I
sd, which was not his name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big
car. . .
Believe me, it fits, and it brings a smile as so much of Augie's narration does.
As I was saying, once the Minneapolis mystery is solved, we move on to The Nameless Dame, in which Sabbatini has moved to my neck of the woods--Guerneville/Cazadero on the Russian River. Only he's not a detective any more. He's married a woman he met during the Minnesota investigation, had a kid, and wants to open a Karoake poetry bar, where people can come in and recite poems instead of singing country music or whatever.
Augie (still the narrator) comes out for a visit. A woman gets gunned down and lies unidentified for a time. Now Augie and Sabbatini have to solve that one as well as staving off a proposed casino and people who don't want the bar to open. Enemies of art. In this one, Augie has taken to composing haiku--or at least haiku-like poems. He's eschewed all the syllable counting, but he likes to encapsulate moments in verse:
The evidence slips like sand
through his hands.
the air is clear.
No suspect, no witness.
Once the ghosts stop
singing their damn songs
he'll call it a day.
And thus it goes from one end of this entertaining and gritty narrative to the other. So, set up a bong and start turning pages. You're guaranteed a trip you won't forget.
June 22, 2012
The setting is special to me, so I couldn't help but pick up this book to read it. The characters are quirky and odd, which I liked, but I figured out the mystery well before the end. It was still a very enjoyable read.
April 24, 2012
I was hopeful for three chapters, it got worse. Not interested in reading any more by this auther.
Want to read
May 29, 2012Not sure yet.
June 24, 2012
It's quirky. It's kind of noir. It's poetry and pot. It's romantic suspense done with black and white film & played on an ipad. I don't know why I liked it other than it was delightfully different.
September 1, 2012
First book I've read by Bart Schneider, but it won't be my last...
August 13, 2013
A fun vacation read. I read it because I know the Russian River area so well. If the same story had been set in a different location I probably would not have picked it up.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews